Chapter 8: Assessment Suspended (Revised)

Dome is the name of a newly emerged company, unlike the long‑standing Church; it is a powerful force that has risen only in recent years.

They built themselves up relying on new energy and rune technology, taking a path completely different from that of the Church.

But after several years of development, Dome has shown a faint trend of being able to stand shoulder‑to‑shoulder with the Church.

Hearing Qi Hengyu's words, Shen Zexi's gentle expression sank instantly; no matter how good‑tempered someone is, they can't tolerate being shouted at in the face, and fine sparks of lightning flickered in the depths of his eyes as he spoke coldly.

"Watch your mouth; a simple‑minded brute like you has no right to lecture me."

"A brute? Hah."

Qi Hengyu didn't get angry but laughed, arms crossed, provoking words continually spilling from his mouth.

"It's certainly better than those who rely on Dome's vast resources piled up, yet can only spit out a few electric sparks."

"How so? Now that you've left Dome's climate‑controlled lab, even killing a few stink bugs leaves you panting?"

"Want to give it a try?"

Shen Zexi's fingertips crackled with a blinding electric arc, emitting a sharp popping sound, and the surrounding air grew viscous.

Qi Hengyu also snorted coldly, assumed a fighting stance, and a mighty aura began to condense around him as he clenched his fists.

The atmosphere between them turned tense, energy surging unseen, as a clash between the two teenage prodigies seemed about to erupt.

"Whoosh!"

A streak of fluorescent green that could be called visual pollution swept across the midpoint between them at a speed that left an afterimage.

The gust it generated even stirred the few strands of hair on Qi Hengyu's forehead and the hem of Shen Zexi's clothing.

Both stared, their arrogant, provoking expressions freezing simultaneously; they turned as one toward the direction where the green afterimage vanished, their faces blank.

"What the hell just darted past? A hallucination?"

Before they could recover from that intensely polluting fluorescent green, the answer came chasing after them on its own.

"Tap‑tap‑tap!"

Fine footsteps approached from afar, the sound not loud but very dense.

It was the noise produced by countless limbs scraping wildly across the ground.

Accompanying the sound came a toxic mist with extremely strong corrosiveness.

Under their gaze, a huge aberrant species that almost blocked the entire street, about two to three meters tall, revealed its true form.

It was a venom spider, its bloated abdomen covered in strange patterns that made one feel uneasy at a glance, its eight scarlet compound eyes burning with frenzied rage.

Its scythe‑like pincers opened and closed, dripping corrosive venom that could eat away at the ground.

"Roar!" The powerful sonic impact made their eardrums sting a little.

The venom spider's compound eyes remained locked on the distant, frantically fleeing green speck; the two "obstacles" in its pursuit path were not worth its attention.

At this moment, Qi Hengyu and Shen Zexi acted in perfect sync, each instinctively stepping back one pace.

At this point, no verbal communication was needed.

"Just run!!!"

The next second, the two heavenly prodigies who had just been at odds turned in unison.

They simultaneously pushed their movement techniques to the limit, bursting forth with the fastest speed they had ever achieved, joining the fleeing line of that green marker‑like streak ahead.

Grudges and face‑saving became utterly laughable before the leader‑class aberrant species behind them.

"Damn! What the hell did that green light up ahead attract?!"

Qi Hengyu cursed while sprinting, his voice distorted by the wind, but the ground tremors and the scalp‑tingling sound kept drawing nearer.

Shen Zexi's body crackled with lightning; he even resorted to stimulating his physique with electricity to boost speed, his face now deathly pale.

"If you don't want to die, run! That's a leader‑class aberrant species, and we've been dragged into its hunting range!"

Meanwhile, Ying Duo, still leading the way with his fluorescent‑green head, wore his usual vacant expression.

He was frantically fleeing forward with a highly efficient parkour move, flinging the two NPCs he had innocently dragged along far behind.

——————————————

Inside the monitoring room, it was now in an uproar!

"How could a venom spider appear in the assessment zone?! And it's the mother body!"

A teacher stood up, pointing at the huge terrifying figure on the main screen, his voice changing tone.

Since this area could be designated as an assessment zone, the aberrant species nearby must have been cleared out, leaving only small types that students could handle.

To prevent later‑arriving students from finding no aberrant species, they would regularly release some captured from elsewhere.

"Energy reaction over the limit! Did it crawl out of some abandoned underground pipe? It wasn't found during the previous cleanup, was it?"

"There seems to be an aberrant species nest near the assessment zone, but a preliminary survey earlier showed no leader‑class aberrant species inside."

"Damn it, it's that fluorescent‑green‑headed kid! He's the one who lured this thing from the nest into the assessment zone!"

Another teacher immediately pulled up Ying Duo's previous movement trajectory, seeing how he had left the assessment area, and then how, after the spider nest collapsed, he had kited the aberrant species all the way into the assessment zone.

"Nonsense! Pure nonsense!"

"Now is not the time to assign blame! Activate the emergency plan immediately!" A voice drowned out all other sounds in the monitoring room.

Chief examiner Wu Tiancheng's face was grim; he mentally noted a demerit for Ying Duo, but there was no time to assign blame—saving lives came first.

He pressed the red button on the console.

The alarm covering the entire assessment zone sounded instantly.

Through the energy amplifier, Wu Tiancheng's voice was broadcast via speakers placed throughout the assessment zone.

"Attention all candidates taking the entrance exam! Mitra Academy's entrance assessment has suffered a sudden accident and ended early! Repeat, the assessment is terminated immediately!"

"Please all candidates return to the Rust‑Plated Square assembly point as fast as possible! Watch out for danger along the way! This is not a drill!"

"Once again, the assessment has ended early! Evacuate immediately!"

The teacher in charge of monitoring the data stream immediately tallied the locations of all candidates and then reported to Wu Tiancheng.

Good news, most examinees haven't ventured deep into the outer area; they're already on their way back.

Only three people chose to go deep into the assessment zone to hunt Aberrant Species: Ying Duo, Qi Hengyu, and Shen Zexi—they're all within the hunting range of that venomous spider!

Teacher Li Ya watched the three desperadoes sprinting wildly on the screen, her face turning pale, especially the especially conspicuous Ying Guang Lu charging ahead at the front.

At first she still paid attention to their movements, noticing that Ying Duo was only loitering in the outer part of the assessment zone, and she thought Ying Duo had taken her words to heart—but how long had it been since she looked away?

Is this guy stirring up trouble a bit too quickly?

We need someone to go save them! They can't hold out much longer!

I'll go. A low voice sounded.

The speaking teacher surnamed Su stared at the screen, his eyes inexplicably darkened, unknown what he was thinking.

Teacher Su?

Wu Tiancheng instinctively turned his head at the sound, and only after seeing who had volunteered did he nod.

Go quickly and return quickly, with the examinees' safety as the top priority.

Given the situation, by the time other teachers arrive at the scene, it will likely be too late; Teacher Su is indeed the best choice for intervention right now.

Understood. Teacher Su simply gave a casual reply.

He didn't take the usual passage, but went straight to a sealed Guan Cha Chuang at the edge of the Jian Kong Shi.

Without any visible action from him, the reinforced glass of the Guan Cha Chuang together with the alloy wall behind it silently melted into a round hole large enough for one person to pass through, and the wasteland's wind and sand immediately poured in.

He stepped out and leapt down from the outer wall of the towering Jian Kong Ta Lou.

During the fall, the object wrapped in cloth strips in his arms emitted a humming sound, faintly revealing a gleaming metal gun barrel.

His figure in mid-air borrowed force several times in an eerie manner, like a ghost merging with the wind and sand, rushing toward the venomous spider at astonishing speed.